What Gaming For Prolonged Periods Does To Your Body

Let’s
be honest: we all love gaming, and we all spend way too much time
doing it. It’s never just “one more round”, despite our best
efforts of convincing everyone that it is. Needless to say, spending
such huge amounts of time playing video games can have quite a
detrimental effect on your body. Let’s see what all that gaming is
doing to your health!

Increased
Risk of Obesity

I
mean, this one’s pretty obvious: if you spend a lot of time sitting
down, you’re not going to get any thinner. While this counts for
playing video games, this counts for pretty much every hobby you do
sitting down.

It
Is An Addiction

Yes,
I know, it’s not exactly the new heroin and I’m pretty sure we
won’t be seeing video games being sold on the black market any time
soon (at least not for drug-related reasons), but video games can
really have an addictive effect and make you disregard more important
parts of your life just to beat Dark Souls. And we all know that’s
never happening.

Eye
Problems

Much
to everyone’s surprise, looking at a computer screen for hours on
end can damage your eyesight. Somehow this is all video gaming’s
fault, and not the fact that most jobs these days require you to
spend 8 hours a day in front of a computer. Na-ah, it’s the gaming
you do after work that’s screwing with your eyes.

Lower
Back Problems

I
cannot stress this enough, but if you’re going to be gaming for
prolonged periods of time, get a proper ergonomic chair! It’s all
fun and games now, but decades of gaming can screw up your lower back
and spinal canal like it’s nobody’s business.

Nintendonitis

Nintendonitis
is the name we give to the strain injuries people can get from using
a controller for too long. Since a controller is mainly high
repetition of 5-6 different movements, this can put a huge strain on
your thumbs, fingers, elbows and wrists depending on your playstyle.

Risk
of Thrombosis

Look,
it’s all fun and games until someone dies and taking frequent
gaming sessions that last for way too long can make your blood start
to clot because of all the sitting down. At this point, you are
literally risking your life by playing video games and the blood
clots can – and will – kill you over time. This is the same thing
that happens to people that frequently do long flights, by the way.
Get up every once in a while, and go for a short walk: grab a drink,
take a toilet break, get some food…

Exhaustion

Raise your hand if you’ve ever gone to sleep much later than you intended because you spent most of the night gaming. Exhaustion can have some of the worst long-term effects on your body, so make sure to not make this a daily habit. Depriving yourself of sleep can lead to all kinds of nasty things that no gaming experience will make up for.